A frenetic fast moving thriller "Third Strike" is an on-point novel from British Author Zoe Sharp.  Barry Award Finalist for "First Drop" ,  Zoe Sharp has once again manged to provide a great thriller for an afternoon read.

If you haven't read any other Charlie Fox Thrillers you've missed out on a gripping read.  Featuring a flawed but magnetic female protagonist, this book is insightfully accurate in its view of parent child relationships.

Praised by Jeffrey Deaver and Lee Child as breathlessly compelling and the real deal, it can be highly recommended for readers who enjoy characters such as Sue Grafton's Kinsey Millhone.

Charlie struggles to protect her cold and distant parents from killers determined to silence them.  In spite of their disapproval of her profession and lifestyle choices, she commits herself to their safety.  Reminiscent of the struggles between generations, it validates the humanity of all.  Definitely worth reading!

Palace Council is a political thriller covering the two decades of the 60's or to be more precise 1954-1974, this book manages to include many of the prominent personalities of the time. 

It involves a mysterious secret society, the murder of a prominent lawyer and a sister involved in terrorist activities.  The book  takes a shot gun approach to evidence.  By the time all the shot is found the author must struggle to pull out a conclusion. 

A talented writer whose first novel,"The  Emperor of Ocean Park" received well deserved praise achieves another electrical  portrait of  our country.  Especially astute in his view of  well educated African American professionals, Mr. Carter  opens a window into this world for the rest of us.  He manipulates history and combines the the Harlem Society of the  1940's and 1950's with the world in which his protagonist, Eddie Wesley, moves.

This book achieves a facinating and human portrait of Richard Nixon.  It actually manages to  make him real, sympathetic and yet pathetic at the same time. 

At the end of the book the author unashamedly confesses his manipulation of history. But the reader doesn't mind because the journey has been enlightening. 

Knockemstiff is a linked collection of stories about the inhabitants of a small town in Ohio named Knockemstiff.  The town is grim, run-down, and the world has mostly passed it by.  The same can be said of its residents, who are, for the most part, poor and uneducated.  They include perverts, alcoholics, the mentally ill, and drug abusers.  The stories take place over a period of fifty years.

It is worth mentioning that Knockemstiff is a real town, and the author, currently an MFA student in creative writing at Ohio State, grew up there.  This provides him with a unique and sympathetic perspective towards the town and its residents.

The premise of the book sounds incredibly depressing, and it is, to an extent.  What redeems it is the author's unflinching and nonjudgemental portrayal of the characters.  Knockemstiff's residents do horrible things to each other in the course of the book, and the lives they lead are often bleak and hopeless.  By presenting the book's characters without judgement, Pollack allows us to see them more clearly.  Instead of being amoral monsters, they come across as people who are largely at the mercy of a grim, hopeless environment. 

Many of the stories are heartbreaking.  Mankind has a great capacity for cruelty, and that capacity is magnified in a place like Knockemstiff.  Mankind also has an immense capability to be noble, even in the face of adversity.  Pollock maintains a balance between these two poles throughout the book.  Sometimes, as in the story "I Start Over," he combines cruelty and nobility in a way that left tears in my eyes.

This is a fine, fine collection of stories by an author who deserves to be watched in the future.  It is all the more impressive that this is Mr. Pollock's first book.  While it is definitely not for everyone (those who are easily offended are advised to avoid it), it is a highly rewarding and life-affirming experience.

We're all busier than ever, and we're all stressed out.  Meditation is a great way to help deal with life's stresses.  But how can the average busy person learn to meditate?  Doesn't it take years of practice and study under a guru?  Not at all. The Complete Idiot's Guide to Short Meditations shows you how to lower your stress levels, lighten up, start enjoying life, and be healthier with a wide variety of short meditations that take 15 minutes or less.

The idea of meditation can seem foreign and even scary to the average person.  Isn't it some sort of mystical process where you learn to detach yourself from the world? No!  There is nothing inherently mystical or religious in the practice of meditation.  At its heart, it is nothing more than learning how to control your brain and your thoughts.  Most of us have habitual thought patterns that run whether we want them to or not.  Quite often, these patterns are negative and self-defeating.  They can lead to negative and self-defeating behaviors.  Meditation provides a way to short-circuit these patterns.

Don't let the "Complete Idiot's" tag fool you.  This is an outstanding and thorough introduction to the varieties of meditation.  It is also highly recommended for experienced meditators.  It gives a concise background to the science behind meditation, then provides a series of increasingly deep meditation exercises.  A wonderful feature of the book is the number and variety of the meditation exercises it provides.  Everyone is different and has different needs.  The wide range of the exercises ensures that anyone who reads this book will find a meditation that meets their needs.  Some of the meditations will resonate with you, and some will not.

This can be a hard book to "read" in the traditional sense.  Once you find an exercise that really works for you, you may feel inclined to stop and work with that exercise for a while.  That's what I found happening to me again and again.  I have a feeling that this is how the book should be used.  Its intent is to get the reader to start meditating in a way that works for them.

If you're curious about meditation and want to see what it is like, this is the book to start with.  If you've meditated in the past and want to get back in to the practice, this is the book to read.  If you are currently meditating and want to broaden your range of practices, this is the book to read. 

If you haven’t started reading the Twilight Series by Stephenie Meyer you have a great read ahead of you.  “Breaking Dawn” is the fourth volume in the series.  It follows “Twilight”, “New Moon” and “Eclipse”. Hesitant to read the last book in a series first, I suggest you begin with  “Twilight”.  I read all four titles in four days.  It is a tribute to the series that the 700+ pages in each book were rapidly consumed.   These books follow the convoluted romance between Bella (human), Edward (vampire) and Jacob (werewolf).

Where often Vampire fiction is overly bloody, violent, evil and stomach turning, this series reworks the dark myths into something that is actually innocent, funny and often moralistic.  As a YA writer Meyer is a master craftsman.  Maintaining all the romance and mystery of forbidden love she manages to reach to a moral high ground as she delves into the supernatural realms. 

This series is a worthy heir to the success of Rowling’s Harry Potter books.  

As the final book in the quartet it is a book filled with suspense, adventure, hope and tenuous happy endings.  There is no mystery why so many young women responded to the siren call of the Barnes Noble midnight book release party.  It is a romantic fantasy for the innocent of heart.  With danger always in the background the good triumph.

Characters are diverse, engaging as well as mysterious and repellent in some cases.  The idealistic, vegetarian vampires (They only drink the blood of wild animals or blood bank donations.) have an aversion to killing humans and maintain a mutually beneficial truce with the shape shifters in a neighboring Indian tribe.    They have created a family of individuals held together by common ideals and love. 

Unusual and wonderfully refreshing, don’t miss reading these books.  

by Doug Dorst

 Get ready for some local action as we follow the story of Michael Mercer, a rookie cop for the Colma Police Department.  The twenty-nine year old man was floundering around in go nowhere jobs until he finally finds his calling as a Police Officer.  He feels very comfortable because he can go by "The Book" as an officer.  He has a long time relationship with Fiona, a nurse 13 years his senior, that is going nowhere.  Michael just can't commit! Things change for Michael when he discovers a near dead teenager in Greenlawn Cemetary who had been bound and gagged.  The teen, Jude DiMaio,  the son of a famous San Francisco movie director, claims he doesn't remember a thing about the incident or the people who did this to him.  Michael takes an interest in the boy and the DiMaio parents take an interest in Michael since he saved their son's life.  Meanwhile, back in the cemetary, a band of ruthless ghosts are tormenting other more peaceful spirits who inhabit the cemetary.  The ghosts are based on real-life people who are buried in Greenlawn such as aviator Lincoln Beachey and notorious criminal Doc Barker.  Michael is one of the two police officers capable of seeing the ghosts.  However, Officer Featherstone was killed by the ghosts and Michael is on his own in ridding the cemetary of these shady (pun intended) guys.  Jude's situation worsens as he becomes more involved with drug users and Michael once again saves the boy's life.  I really enjoyed this book.  A bit of a mystery and a bit of a fantasy, this book is also a funny and insightful story of the coming of age of both Michael and Jude.  Dorst has created some memorable interesting characters and, of course, the local angle is a lot of fun

When I saw the title of Liz Tuccillo's novel, How to Be Single, I scoffed. "Yeah, right," I thought; I sneered! "As if anyone has perfected that or if being single even needs to be perfected." I assumed the book was a self-help guide, so I don't even know why I picked it up.

No, wait. I remember. The cover reminded me of a 30 Rock episode, the one in which Jack puts the fear of choking to death alone in her spinster apartment in Liz Lemon. That's why I picked up the book, opened it to a page at random, and read "Ruby thought about all the men she thought she was in love with, with whom she had fantastic sex, and with whom it didn't work out. They all meant nothing to her now. Serena was right. It is an illusion."

Still thinking this was a self-help guide, I thought with some embarrassment, "This book is for me." Divorced and statistically-more-prone-to-being-killed-in-a-terrorist -attack-in-New-York-City-(even though, heh, I live in California)-than-to-get-married me.

And even though it isn't a self-help book -- I mean, thank goodness it isn't -- I had a hard time remembering it was a NOVEL; it read more like a memoir -- an hilarious, painful, sharp truth, slap in the face, wonderful perfect story.

Julie is the hub for her friends Ruby, Serena, Alice, and Georgia. They are all smart, attractive, funny, single women in their late thirties (Georgia is divorced with two small children). When the five of them get together for a girls' night out (more like "man-hunting" (tip: go to a steak restaurant; avoid sports bars)) so that the newly-single Georgia can get her date on, an Incident sparks Julie's interest in finding out how single women around the world regard their single status, men, relationship, and love.

There are two important lessons for women especially to take from this informal survey which covers France, Brazil, Bali, China, India, Iceland, and, of course, New York. Julie realizes one, the one lesson she'd tried to resist -- and when she has her epiphany, I burst out laughing and crying at the same time, just like a woman. Thank goodness I wasn't at the gym.

The second important lesson, the one that Julie talks about but doesn't stress, is this: Women, have your pride.

I love this book; I love the women in it (I know they are based on real women or composites of real women); and I love Liz Tuccillo for writing it.

Sunny McCloskey, walking home from a party late one night, thinks she sees something unusual hanging from a tree in a vineyard. Is it... can it be... a body? A truck leaving the area passes her, and curiosity pushes her to take a closer look. She finds a young woman intricately bound by rope, shibari-style, dead.

Thus begins Nadia Gordon's third mystery, Murder Alfresco, featuring the restaurant owner and chef Sunny McCoskey who finds herself once again in the middle of a murder investigation – and this time, she's also a target.

Readers familiar with Napa Valley and Marin County should be delighted with the descriptions, as well as readers who appreciate fresh writing and a well-told mystery. Sunny and her friends are believable and likable characters, and their interaction will draw fans deeper into their circle. In fact, I read the McCoskey books as much for these characters as for the mystery.

Now the hard part – waiting for the fourth novel.

A boy's corpse in a makeshift coffin washes ashore in Brooklyn's Red Hook, the letters "G.I." written in marker on his forehead, and Jack Leightner, a detective with the Brooklyn South Homicide Task Force, back at work after recovering from an injury sustained in the line of duty, is assigned to the case in The Graving Dock by Gabriel Cohen.

This is Red Hook, a neighborhood that was cut off from the rest of Brooklyn by the construction of freeways and thereby deteriorating into gritty inner-city (read: impoverished, abandoned) noir charm that appeals to the imagination of people who don't live there. Cohen weaves the two main threads -- the mystery of the murdered boy and the challenge and surprises of new loves -- seamlessly through Det. Leightner, a character who, with Cohen's careful and deft hand, transcends the usual two-dimensional detective of crime novels and is believable as a human being with a tough job and the same kinds of internal conflicts as most folks.

The last paragraph, the last sentence, easily could have erred on the side of sentimentality and cliché; instead, it is perfect.

The Graving Dock is Cohen's second novel featuring Det. Jack Leightner. His first, Red Hook, was nominated for the Edgar Award for Best First Novel.

A Silicon Valley satire revolving around three women: a housewife reminiscent of the Desperate Housewives' television  show, her entrepreneur daughter learning the cost of financing a busines with credit cards and a fourteen year old child involved in a trainwreck of teenage angst.

The family patriarch, Paul, betrays all of them by systematically cheating them of the rewards of his business success.  Leaving the family for his wife's best friend, this jerk waltzes off into the middle age man's euphoria while destroying his family. 

Likeable, believable characters demand your sympathy but their behavior is somewhat stereotypical.  The book flows swiftly with what is supposed to be engaging humor.

I found the book to be profoundly sad with a positive ending that was rather wishful.  It seemed to tell a story most older women can echo in the voice of at least one of their friends.    The book ends on a hopeful note that in reality would most likely be immense tragedy. 

It is a fun, quick read with a bitter after taste.